May Learning Guide Key

Wednesday War - May Checked Tuesday November 24th. 


Learning Objective:  Students will demonstrate chapter comprehension of the novel Wednesday Wars.  Included are reviews on figurative language and literary elements (RL 8.1-4).

Teaching Objective:  Students will listen to the audio of Wednesday Wars and complete the written learning guide in a variety of ways (individually, as a class, in small groups).  Students will learn the importance of completing the work - to be used on the summative test.

Starter:  Journal Entry
Starter Paragraph:  When Holling wants Mrs. Baker to drive faster she tells him, "I tend not to want to see how far I can break the law before I'm caught."  Do people who break the law generally do so believing they won't get caught?  Explain in a paragraph and remember correct punctuation. 

Score: Wednesday Wars May Learning Guide (complete – 20 pts., ¾ complete – 15 pts., ½ complete – 10 pts., ¼ complete – 5 pts., missing or nothing completed – 0).  If a student is not proficient on the upcoming chapter test, this will need to be completed before the student is allowed to re-take the test.

KEY – Wednesday Wars – May

A.  Vocabulary
*incinerated / destroy by burning                                    *synagogue / place of Jewish worship
 *renovate / restore                                                             *melancholy / sadness
*combustion / process of burning something               *meandered / wander endlessly
*abolitionist /  one who wants to end slavery                *arsonist / one who intentionally starts fires
*Bar mitzvah / Jewish coming to age celebration      *immigrate / come to live permanently in foreign country

B.  Figurative Language
1.  We stayed under our desks for eighteen minutes, until the wind would have
whisked away the first waves of airborne radioactive particles…personification, whisked – onomatopoeia
2.  Hollings felt that part of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’s problem, may have been that he had a name that made him sound like a breakfast special at Sunnyside Morning Restaurant.   simile, allusion
3.  I figured if I tried to pass them, they would probably leave my bloody body on the side of the road.
4.  “You will be going to Columbia University when lima beans fly.”  idiom
5.  He watched over it like his Reputation.  simile
6.  Mrs. Baker explained to Mrs. Sidman why our classroom smelled like a brewery.  simile
7.  On a bright blue day when there wasn’t an atomic bomb on any horizon, when the high clouds were painted onto blue canvas…   metaphor – sky is blue canvas
8.  …when tulips were standing at attention… personification
9.  “We can’t do that either,” she said, and her voice was as sad and lost as lonliness.  simile
10.  The rush, the roar, the squeak, the whoosh- they all stopped.  Really.  Like Lenoid Brezhnev had sent over an atomic bomb and wiped it all out.  alliteration - rush, roar, onomatopoeia – whoosh, simile – sounds stopped like Lenoid Brezhnev had sent over an atomic bomb, allusion – Lenoid Brezhnev
11.  Around us every shade of green you could ever hope to imagine, broken up here and there with a flowering tree blushing to a light pink.  Personification

C.  Literary Element – Setting - In complete sentences, write something Holling learned about each architectural setting (location), Mrs. Baker and Holling visit (pgs. 221-223).  Answers Vary – must be in complete sentences.

*Quaker Meeting House:  built 1676, built when people were alive when Shakespeare was alive, had been a station on the Under-ground Railroad where escaped slaves hid.

*First Long Island Jail:  2 cells - one for men one for women, first male occupant stole horse, first female refused to pay tax to a church she was not a member

*Hick’s Park:  where settlers grazed cows and sheep

Saint Paul’s Episcopal School: housed British soldiers American Revolution,

*Temple Emmnauel:  had four temples built on site, first burned by lightening, second burned by British soldiers, third from arson, ark holding Torah was never damaged

*first abolitionist school:  where Negro children were taught

*Saint Adelbert’s Chatholic Chuch: built a century ago with pennies of Italian immigrants
D.  Literary Element – Plot – write the ultimate result of the conflict, for each piece of rising action listed                                                                                                                                  

*Mrs. Baker receives telegram – husband has been found

                                                                                *Holling and sister spend the day together – find each other
                                                                *sister calls – Holling sends money and goes to meet her
                                                *Mrs. Baker not a fan of drills – breaks cider to go on field trip
                                *Danny nervous over bar mitzvah – friends help him practice               
                *Holling’s sister and father fight over her attending Columbia University – sister runs away
*Mr. Hoodhood learns Kowalski and Associates will renovate Yankee Stadium – Mr. Hoodhood buys a Mustang 

E.  Understanding What You Have Read

1.  What does every May bring to Camillo Jr. High for the school to do (p. 208)?  bomb drills
2.  Why is Camillo Junior High a likely target for an attack (p. 208)?  Very close to New York City
3.  List three discomforts Holling expresses during the eighteen minute bomb drill (p. 209)? bent spine, leg spasm, wanting to throw up from gum under desks
4.  What new job does Kowalski and Associates have (p. 211)?  When is the previous chapter was there foreshadowing (hint or clue) of this (also p. 224)?   What effect does this have on the family moving (p. 215)?  Renovation of Yankee Stadium - Mrs. Baker talked with the players at Yankee Staidum about it -  Kowalski’s will not be moving
5.  What is the cause of Holling’s sister throwing lima beans at her father (p. 212)?  Heather’s father tells her she can go to college at Columbia “when lima beans fly.”
6.  Cite evidence that Holling likes the new car his father purchased (p. 212, 213,)?  “It was, all in all, the most beautiful, perfect car that God has ever allowed to be made on earth.”  “I dreamed of driving that car.”
7.  Summarize what effect Heather’s note initially has on her family (pgs. 213-214).  Father swore he wouldn’t help her if she called, father went driving in car alone, Holling does dishes alone, house grew quiet and still.  Father stopped watering azalea bushes, no music from upstairs, no lima beans for dinner, nobody talked about anything.
 8.  Holling finds The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark boring reading.  Write dialogue that expresses Holling’s solution to reading boring stuff with what Meryl Lee and Mrs. Baker think about his solution.  Be sure and use rules for writing dialogue.  Answers will vary.  Should reflect that Holling skipped a lot of the reading and Meryl Lee and Mrs. Baker told him that wasn’t ok.
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9.  Danny is nervous about making a mistake in front of all his relatives at his bar mitzvah.  His friends try to help him during lunch recess, but at the end of every recess, where does Danny still want to run away to (p. 218)?  California

10.  Holling asks Mrs. Baker if she would mind not calling him Mr. Hoohhood.  He says it sounds like she is talking to his father.   Mrs. Baker says, “But you have similarities.”  What evidence is there that Mrs. Baker thinks Holling, like his father, would be a good architect (p. 219)?   What thoughts and feelings does this provoke (p. 220)?  Mrs. Baker saw the architectural drawings Holling had given to Meryl Lee.  She tells Holling they were wonderful and he has “the soul of an architect.”  Holling says he wants to decide for himself, meaning he doesn’t want to be forced into the family business. 

11.  During the Wednesday afternoon bomb drill, how does Mrs. Baker get permission for herself and Holling to go on a field trip (p. 220)?  (Intentionally) knocks Mrs. Kabaloff’s pilgrim cider of the shelf, which makes the room smell like a brewery. 

12.  What is Mrs. Baker’s response when Holling asks her if she was the one who talked with the boss about Kowalski and Associates renovating Yankee Stadium (p. 224)?  It is not something he needs to know.
13.  Mrs. Baker thinks the bomb drills are pointless because if an attack happened it really wouldn’t matter.  Why then does she tell Holling they have the drills (p. 225)?  What advice does she give Holling about learning (p. 225)? 
Mrs. Baker tell Holling that we have drills because it gives people comfort to think they are prepared, then nothing bad can really happen.  She also tells Holling to learn everything he can, then use all he has learned to grow up to be a wise and good man. 

14.  Holling realizes how much he loves and misses his sister when he gets home to an empty house and realizes the “biggest part of the empty in the house” is her not being there (p. 226).  How does Holling come up with the money for his sister a ticket home (p. 228)?  When he finds out there are two Western Union stations closest to the Minneapolis bus station, how does he decide which one to send the money to (p. 229)?  Holling cashes in his Salisbury Park savings bond.  He sends the money to Heather Avenue because Heather is his sister’s name.

15.  Cite evidence showing ways the conflict in the Hoodhood home escalates when Holling is trying to get his sister home (pgs. 230-231).  How is Holling able to meet his sister (p. 232)?   Holling’s dad refuses to go get Heather.  He says she created the problem herself.  Holling stands up to his father for the first time.  He tells his father his sister needs help.  Mr. Hoodhood tells Holling to go get her himself.  Holling gets the keys to the Mustang.  His mother tells him he doesn’t know how to drive.  Holling asks her to go with him.  She says she can’t do that.  Holling ends up riding with Meryl’s father, who is going to Yankee Stadium.  Holling’s mother gives him money for train tickets and lunch. 

16.  What is Holling’s response when Mr. Hoodhood asks Heather if she found herself (p. 234)?  What deeper meaning is there for those words?   Holling says, “She found me.”  Deeper meaning relates back to page 226 when Holling comes home to the empty house – “Maybe the first time that you now you really care about something is when you think about it not being there.”  Heather has learned what her brother is willing to do for her.   

17.  What are Holling’s final thought on Hamlet and what it means to be human (p. 234)?  “He didn’t need to find himself – he just needed to let himself be found.”

18.  What is Holling referring to when he says “Shakespeare couldn’t write any better than that (p. 236)?  Mrs. Baker receives a telegram from her husband.  The telegram to Mrs. Baker from Mr. Baker saying he is ok and coming home…“Sweet eyes – out of jungle – ok – home in time for strawberries – love Ty.